


unsupervised

by doug



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Gen, Gen Work, really not much else
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 11:22:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22635967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doug/pseuds/doug
Summary: Markus fails to deal with death. Leo has to deal with more than that.A vignette written from Leo's perspective. Please, feel free to suggest corrections.
Kudos: 9





	unsupervised

He has to be careful so as to not draw any attention and raise neighbours’ suspicions in the dead of night. He has never learnt how to be quiet, and so the task appears to be impossible; but the worry that he has so rarely experienced, the kind of worry that twists his guts and stings at the heart he chooses not to remember having, keeps him going.

The house welcomes him. He acts fast, so that Markus won’t catch him and force him out like the last time. He runs to Carl’s studio, grabs the ladder and leaves through the front door, making an impression that he went away for good. He stands still in the shadows for a minute, listening intently; nothing seems to move inside the house. He then props a ladder against the wall and starts climbing.

He remembers the call he made earlier in the afternoon, after Markus told him that Carl was asleep and didn’t want any guests, which happened for the third time in a week. It’s not that he was suddenly set alight with filial affection, but it rang a bell, especially because Markus was so insistent on him leaving that it pushed him out with force, and Markus was build to be strong. Surely, Leo was not on the best terms with his father, but Carl apparently not feeling well and refusing to see his only son was alarming. The old man used to pretend he cared, at the very least.

After he declined all the options a bot at the call centre offered him, a real girl chimed in. He said he suspected that his parent’s android glitched and was acting strangely; then the girl whose name he missed searched for his father’s credentials and told him, “I’m sorry, Mr. Manfred, but there are no records that indicate that Carl Manfred possesses an android purchased from Cyberlife. Are you sure that the android was bought at one of our stores?”

“Now that I think of it, I’m not sure”, he muttered. 

“Then I’m afraid you are not entitled to the warranty, Mr. Manfred...”

“It’s not about... listen, it’s not about the money. I’m just... Could you send someone to check the damn thing and maybe fix it?”

“Of course. What is the model that needs a check?”

“RK-something. It’s a really old one.”

It took some time for the girl to reply. “Are you sure, Mr. Manfred? We don’t have the RK line.”

“Well, I can’t go in and confirm it. For reasons. Could you just send someone?”

The girl, sounding fully suspicious, still suggested arranging to send a technician on Sunday. He agreed to this; but Sunday was two days away. He had to see his father sooner than that, make sure he was okay. It was entirely possible that there was no need to, since android nurses were smart enough to call for medical help when a situation was dire. He hung on to the thought. Carl had to be alright.

Except that the call made him anxious. Just what kind of android was there at his father’s side all the time?

So he climbs the ladder. The window to his father’s bedroom is closed and the blinds are shut, but he can sneak a peek if he turns his head just so.

A bedside lamp is on and emits a soft, dimmed light. At first, he is really unsettled to see that Carl’s figure is partly obscured by Markus who lays in bed on the side closer to the window. He’s fully clothed, and only hugs his father over the blanket; weird, but maybe Carl feels so lonely, and Leo has never bothered to build a normal relationship with him. He feels a pang of weird jealousy, like he has to compete with a machine for such attention. He has never bothered, though.

When he does a double take, uneasiness switches to full blown panic. He gasps and grips the window ledge tight, refusing to believe his own eyes. 

He has to call 911. But before, he has to get down. And before that, there is really, really horrible news for him to acknowledge.

Markus stirs and turns its head in his direction. He sways and feels his legs give in at the same time as his fingers start to tremble bad. The withdrawal symptoms he has been battling for the last few days choose to come down on him like a landslide. The ladder wobbles; he is so, so afraid to climb down, but he is even more afraid to stay; he reels, and the ladder leans away, and he can’t breathe when the night air is plenty, and he jumps on the ground awkwardly, spraining his ankles and hitting an arm, before he falls with the ladder. 

He fumbles for the phone. “Please, send, oh god, please send someone immediately”, he stutters, and gives Carl’s address, and chokes on words. He isn’t really sure how he will manage to pay this off, but the thought goes to the back of his mind.

He stands on his fours and heaves for a painful eternity.

Here he thought there was going to be closure. If he didn’t care about his father, there was going to be enough time to learn how to. If he never used to talk to him about important things, it was because difficult topics were always reserved for the future. Whatever kind of connection they had, it was eventually going to become better, because his father could not just vanish away at once, right?

“Leo, I’m calling 911. You are trespassing”, a voice says from behind him. 

He finally throws up.

“Leo?”

“Get the fuck away from me”, he sobs, barely intelligible. “Don’t fucking touch me. I called 911 first.”

He can’t face Markus, and not just because his legs won’t listen.

Why is it all so silent around him, anyway? All he wants is to scream on top of his lungs, because it’s not fair. 

“Don’t fucking go back”, he blurts out when he hears shuffling. “How long were you going to refuse me to see him? How long would it be before someone else would fucking notice?”

“Notice what”, Markus says, and its intonation is so strained that it does not sound like a question at all. It hints at being almost a threat, which is as far from a meek, humble android as it gets, and so he tries to crawl further away, trampling the perfectly tended lawn in front of the house.

“That he’s... he’s dead, Markus, my father is fucking dead, and you haven’t told anyone!”

Markus says calmly, “Carl’s not dead, Leo. He’s tired. He’s just sleeping.”

The pressure in his stomach grows, and he throws up once again. He does not bother to wipe bile from his lips or tears from his face when he finally turns to face Markus. The android’s LED is circling red, but his expression is maintained calm, although it looks like it twitches once in a while. 

“He’s not”, he sobs. “People don’t look like that when they are alive. Not with that skin color, not with such bloated face. God, Markus, how long he’s been there like that?”

“Like what?”

“Goddamn it”, he sobs.

He thought he still had a chance to make things right. Tell dad how he missed him as a child, until he had to beat that feeling into a disfigured memory and to the bottom of his being. Tell him how his mother was afraid to let him see Carl; she said, “Well, he never cared about me, why would he care about you?” 

Tell him how he envied his friends with full families. Tell him how their late reconciliation never soothed his aching for a normal life. Tell him how he used to fantasize about their weekends together, barbecues, games and dad jokes, and how Carl turned out to be a man unsuitable for all fatherly activities, which kind of made him even more cool as Leo grew up.

Tell him how he was sorry for everything. For his addiction, for his failures with getting a real job and good reputation, for only letting other people down constantly. He remembers vividly his own hysterics when he visited Carl unannounced for the first time, leaving their home two states away in the middle of the night and riding a bus all alone to get to his mansion, only to discover that whatever he was expecting was the opposite of reality. He never admitted that he was ashamed of it, even though he pretty much knew Carl was ashamed of his own behavior that day as well. He let Leo in, fed him, then called his mother and booted him out; all indifferent, if a bit irritated.

But Carl, Leo thinks, was just a man, with his own demons, his own history and conflicts, like any other real man; and he, too, did not know how to amend for his mistakes, choosing the language of money instead of expressing his emotions directly. Too bad he is not going to find out more about Carl.

He thought they had time.

It’s this grief that hurts; that he never had anything at all, and now he has even less than that.

“He’s just sleeping”, Markus says quietly, but its eyes glisten in the street light, and its LED is still flashing red, and all of it is so surreal that passing out would be a bliss. He stays conscious, though, as the faint holler of sirens in the distance grows louder. 

“Are you fucking with me? He’s not! What were you even doing with him all this time?”

“The usual routine”, Markus answers at once. “His appetite declined, and he looked like he didn’t want to communicate as much as usual... You know, he never liked to take his drugs, too, but it was nothing out of the ordinary...”

“Fuck me”, he murmurs and then retches again. Markus shifts from one foot to another, and when it turns away to go back into the house, he jolts up and sweeps it off its balance. He briefly laments that he didn’t take his gun with him, so he could riddle this thing with bullets; it would feel vaguely satisfying, he thinks, to do just about anything but think of another piece of him gone.

Its LED spins faster, throbbing crimson. “He’s just sleeping. He couldn’t die”, it repeats, and to the wail of approaching cars, to the passionless wind that chills him to the tiny core and to the alien sight of the dead house, Leo cries.


End file.
